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Don't know if this is really going to be CS material or not, but for a long time now, I've been vaguely urged to watch Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior here. Apparently, it's a martial arts movie, something I really don't watch enough of, known for having the most brutal, weighty, painful fight scenes of anything out there. Pretty sure I've been on record on many occasions pointing out how that's my real make or break sticking point on my action set pieces. I mean, it's not the only thing I look for, but when a movie doesn't respect momentum, I don't respect that movie. Or show as the case may be. Anyway, we open up with a bunch of muddy dudes engaging in some kind of EXTREME tree climbing contest. Also.. these subtitles aren't really getting the job done. "[All shouting in Thai.] "[Shouting continues.]"
After a while, and I mean a WHILE it stops doing weird closed caption style subbing (which even keeps constantly starting actual dialog with "[Speaking in Thai]" we've got some rich jerk wanting to buy this statue from Mud Village here, and the main character, who of course won the EXTREME tree climbing contest, is told "I have taught you the art of Muay Tai. Now never use it." Then the rich guy, whose name is apparently Don, that's pretty easy to remember, clubs someone over the head with a 2x4 and ... oh. He doesn't steal it. He just cuts off and steals the head of Jebediah Springfield Ong-Bak. Or Buddha. Anyway yeah, the mai character has to go retrieve it now. Cutting over to Bangkok, here's some punks having some motorcycle races! One of them is a hotheaded girl, who will presumably become the obligatory girl that must tag arbitrarily along with every action movie hero. And wow, she's got a pretty annoying voice. Anyway, there's some kinda business going on with betting on these bike races and drugs being involved, and both racers it turns out are actually in cahoots. Incidentally, cahoots is really a wonderful word that doesn't see nearly enough usage.
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Oh, and here's the main character, whose name I believe is Ting, which is more fun to type than anything I can come up with, coming to get Biker Guy's help in hunting down Don and the head. Anyway, Biker Guy's all, "Gotta go! Fight club!" And yeah, the statue is definitely named Ong-Bak and is the local village god. So... the title of this movie... kinda misleading. I mean, unless their god physically manifests and starts going to town on people. Oh, and apparently Biker Guy also stole Ting's money before leaving, to go bet on fights here. So anyway, he heads in looking for him, there's some confusion where someone thinks he's here to challenge this American fighty dude, he's like "Yeah know I just want my money." Dude attacks, is instantly dropped. "No... not the prize money keep that. I mean, I just want the money my cousin there stole." So, long story short, they give it to him, and he leaves. Meanwhile, back in Dirtville, there's a drought, because that's what happens when you decapitate a sacred statue don'tchaknow.
So now here's Biker Guy and Biker Girl playing cards. These two pretty seem to be one-note gambley-grifty types. They're uh... not very subtle about it though. Like, seriously, based on this scene I totally do not see how they haven't been caught and maimed like... every time they've ever done this ever. Yeah, kinda like this. Ting sees Biker Guy getting beaten up and really just doesn't care, because seriously, @$%# that guy. Then he notices Biker Girl's getting th same treatment, and just kinda drops everyone. You know... we seem to be establishing a bad precedent on fight scenes here. Oh hey, the leader comes back like immediately with 20 or so dudes. Will this fight last more than 2 seconds?Oh.... this chase I guess. Well this I can get behind at least. Ting just kinda keeps jumping over stuff. Also, these weird closed caption-y subtitles are refering to this music as techno, but.. yeh, it really isn't.
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And wow.. this is getting pretty slapstick. After Biker Guy splits his pans jumping over a rake, he eventually comes to a street butcher, and grabs his knife to defend himself against the oncoming goon horde. They laugh, then he grabs the bigger one still on the table, and they look intimidated... but then like, immediately, some old lady just wanders by shouting "Knives for sale!" Meanwhile, we finally get some actual martial artsy stuff, with some cool breakdancing, and some closer approximations to parkour stuff. There's some pretty sad choreography though. Like, people walking by carrying a big hoop stop really noticeably a bit before the main character comes along to jump through it, a car backing out stops before he comes along to slide under it, etc.
Anyway, Biker Guy eventually offers to really take Ting to where Don hangs out... but... seeing how it's the fight club from earlier, I really don't see why he didn't just say so. Anyway, the current champ is big buff Australian Weird Al here, who's just a total jerk, constantly threatening to rape and murder people if a new challenger doesn't show up. And by threaten, really, I mean attempt. Eventually Ting shows up to kick him in the face, and this fight actually lasts like a whole half minute. Then he's actually pretty much forced to keep fighting by the promotors and not just run out again. At gunpoint. Next guy to jump in is pretty amusing. He's doing this like.. cartoonish tap dance fighting, and has ridiculous spiky hair. Like, porcupine on his head spiky hair. He's the best thing to happen to this movie by far. And naturally, he loses. Oh, and I should probably note Don's boss and some other guy bet on these fights fro a skybox, and that this was shown when Don first showed up with the head and such. Anyway, next fighter is another American dude. He's kinda crazy, speaks only in screams, and fights only in picking up large things and smashing them over heads or throwing them. He's not quite amusing as the last guy, but, I admire his primitive savagery. And... OK, the guy who owns the club just gave him a knife. Are there ANY rules here? Really doesn't seem it.
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Anyway, Don's boss seems to be furious and wanting to kill Ting, not because he knows anything about the plot. I mean, hell, he didn't even want the head. He wanted some necklace, and thought coming back with their statue's essentially worthless head was pretty frelling stupid. He just keeps betting against him and is a sore loser. Eventually though, Don shows up, and immediately flees, and we have plot again. Also, did I mention Don's boss has a voicebox and wheelchair? I probably should have, since those are important details for a major character and all.
So hey, we have a bit of a lull for some plot development for Biker Guy I don't much care about, so now's as good a time as any to point out that the same person who made this more recently made another movie about an idiot savant kickboxer girl. Anyway, that wasn't as long a lull as I thought. We just cut over to Don and some drug dealing prostitute he works for him, her wanting to quit, him forcing a huge wad of... opium I guess down her throat. Some yellow powder type drug anyway. Anyway, Ting appears so chase scene. This time with this giant fleet of weird tricycle taxi things. They're pretty neat looking. Also, the no that isn't techno music that is this movie's soundtrack is pretty nifty, did I mention that? And.. this chase scene is going on quite a while. I's pretty interesting though. Like... a couple dozen of these trike cab things have been destroyed in various interesting was. Eventually, Don and Ting go over a ramp in one, landing in a river, and uh... get distracted b a bunch og grovy statues that are... being stored in nets down there, also severed heads of such. That's.... weird. They call the police and report it it's so weird even. So... Don's boss is pretty angry now.
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So he has the bikers kidnapped. I really feel weird calling them that at this point. Probably should have switched to gamblers at some point. Biker Guy immediately sells out Ting, getting him to agree to a single fight to get the head back. And I mean, seriously, how does that logic hold? You just completely destroyed this guy's stolen antiquities operation. You think he's going to be able to make up for that just off the money he gets betting on one fight? I don't care if you come from some simple dirt farming village in the middle of nowhere, that's an obvious setup. Also, this is apparently a "rope fight" which means Ting and Pain Killer Taking Guy here have rope wrapped around their hands apparently. Or whatever mystery thing he took an injection of before the fight. Secret Fight Winning Juice or something I guess. And... seriously, that's it. No secret murder plan, no come from behind win, he just... loses the fight, that's the end of that scene. Oh. Oh OK. The actual deal was to throw the fight apparently. That makes more sense. And then after the fight, when they go to get the head back, guns time. Naturally, everyone leaves except for the two people here to shoot these two, after they take their hands off them to affix silencers to their guns of course. Oh, there's more guys outside also with guns, and apparently we've got a bunch of those exploding videogame barrels all over. And.... OK This here, this is pretty awesome. Dodging behind some exploding barrels while getting shot at, in addition to delivering some explosions, leaves Ting with Fire Pants. And then he's just kicking and kneeing people like that a bunch. Eventually he jumps into a barrel of water to put them out, but, that's still pretty awesome. Less awesome is that his pants are pretty much totally fine after this. I mean, they're ripped a little, but... that's it.
Anyway, off to the badguys' hidden cave fortress now, where people just arbitrarily all have swords and metal staves, and the music really is techno. It's like, the movie just got bored and decided it needed to throw in a properly awesome fight scene and to heck with making it make any sense. Heck, here's some tonfas that were just lying around. Nice to actually see someone fight with those correctly for once too. Usually people who throw them into something totally don't get what they're for, and assume you spin them around by the handles and use them as some kinda goofy clubs. But no, you basically just give your forearms a wooden undercoating, and thenjust smash them down on dudes. Anyway, the weapon stuff eventually turns into just regular fighting, and, the lesson I' taking from this movie is that Muay Thai mainly involves kicking people in the neck so much I really want to play uh... what was that old strategy game? With the fairly surreal gang stuff, and the Neck Kickers, and giving plasma rifles to little kids on tricycles? I'm totally blanking on this.
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Anyway, big showdown time now I guess. Gotta fight Rope Guy again of course. And again. An awful lot of two dudes just repeatedly kicking each other in the neck. Largely defeated, Rope Guy pulls out a huge handful of syringes and injects them all at once. That's probably an unsafe amount of Winning Juice to take at once. He gets pretty winning, but then Ting sees a giant statue of Ong-Bak just in the background and is inspired to win... by kinda putting his elbow through the top of Rope Guy's head. Then Boss shoots him. Then after a bit more fighting, Boss pulls out a hammer and just goes to smash the head... or Biker Guy I guess since he leaps out to cover it and take the hits. But fortunately, the day is saved by divine intervention.
No seriously, The head of the giant statue just spontaneously detaches and falls on Boss, killing him. Also kinda killing Biker Guy because, he's laying directly in front of him and all. Biker Girl is Upset. Understandably so. Anyway though, Ting brings the head back and... I guess they just kinda glue it back on there. And everyone parties and dances, and apparently none of them are really upset about how the kid who ran off to the big city to hide from social obligations just got killed trying to protect their statue head there, because hey! Elephants! Credits. Uh... yeah, I'm not impressed. Fire Pants was pretty neat, but... yeah I'm not really seeing the appeal otherwise. I mean, I seem to recall this was actually controversial as heck when first released because stunt people got SERIOUSLY hurt doing this stuff generally for real, but... it's not that impressive looking of stuff. I mean, I don't want to ever be kicked in the neck, but there isn't a whole lot of spectacle to seeing it. At least not this much of it. Also... wait, "the Kingdom of Thailand?" Really? It's a kingdom? Man, I know like... shamefully little about that country it seems.
